Mangaluru: Addressing a mammoth crowd, Noted Human Rights Activist Teesta Setalvad delivering a speech during anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act programme organised by Samvidana Samrakshana Samiti at Kuttar Padavu, in the outskirts of Mangaluru on Sunday, 1 March 2020 said, “The country is facing a huge challenge with the negative politics being played out by the ruling BJP at the Centre and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is a ploy to implement their agenda of divide and rule, and there is an urgent need to break away from the vicious politics of the ruling party”.
She further said, “It was wrong to assume that the CAA would affect only Muslims. The amended law would adversely affect the interests of Dalits, Adivasis, tribes, migrant labourers and other sections of society. The attempt to target a community to reap political gains has been happening in the country for long. The people have now descended on the streets as the BJP’s hidden agenda has been exposed. This is a welcome trend, and protests should be held in a systematic way to fetch desired results, and STOP the government from enforcing CAA. At present the government using brute force to crush peaceful anti-CAA demonstrations at many places, which was a “clear violation” of human rights.
Ms Teesta claimed, ” A large section of people would be denied the right to vote if citizenship was given based on documents under the proposed NRC as happened in Assam. They also would not get benefits under government welfare schemes which would amount to a civil death. While one cannot oppose the census process which is required to count the total population, the new columns for parents’ addresses are meant to create a divide by portraying refugees as ‘infiltrators’ which is objectionable. The entire NRC exercise, if taken up, would cost the country dear as it would have to spend at least Rs 55,000 crore for the process. The government was spending the money while failing to address the unemployment issue in the country. People should continuously put pressure on elected representatives and the state governments through their protests against the CAA. A decisive movement of the masses against the Centres move to divide and rule is the need of the hour”.
“The tense situation in New Delhi since a week and violence seen in Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Milia Islamia campuses are a reflection of the Union government not hearing people and using force to silence the opposition to CAA. The Union government was behaving in the same way the British did following the passage of the Rowlatt Act in 1919. The British then carried out firing at Jallianwalabagh and the Union government now was doing the same to those opposing CAA, the proposed National Population Register (NPR) and National Register of Citizenship (NRC). No Government can change the secular nature of the Constitution that granted equal citizenship rights to all” claimed Ms Teesta
